Friday

This story stretches all the way back to October 2000, when I discovered that, contrary to nine-years' worth of presumption, rum was incredibly good liquor. I guess this story actually starts whenever it was I first tasted the crappy Puerto Rican and Jamaican rums exported into the US, declared them undrinkable, and shunned them for the rest of the decade. Oh, I tolerated occasional Captain Morgan cocktails, but tended toward finer horizons: select tequilas and single-malt whiskies. Then came that fateful birthday vacation to sunny Haiti where I, for the first time, tried Barbancourt's* five-star rhum on the expansive balcony at the Hotel Oloffson.* It was a revelation. I suddenly understood why pirates loved this stuff. The drink was subtle, woody, interesting. Barbancourt bottles three qualities of aged rhum: three-star, five-star, and fifteen-year reserve. I managed to sample all of them before returning home from Haiti. My new love for rum was steadfast: not only did I now know the good stuff existed, but available bad stuff became far more tolerable. I was ever on the lookout, but the only place I found imported Barbancourt was New York City. Meanwhile, I discovered the British Navy's peaty Pusser's rum,* excellent Nicaraguan Flor de Caña,* better Venezuelan ron Santa Teresa,* and even better Guatemalan ron Zacapa.* Some were probably better than, but none were preferable to, my sweetheart Haitian Barbancourt. Just before Christmas 2005, one of Sunshine's coworkers, recently returned from Hispaniola, gave us a bottle of fifteen-year reserve--our second ever. Today, Sunshine and I found all three types of Barbancourt available in Lexington, Kentucky at the vast new Liquor Barn on Man-O-War just off I-75. This is wonderful news because that thirteen-month-old Christmas bottle we've been traveling with is getting empty. Now we have our third bottle ever. [Cavin]